A big welcome to our newest board member – the remarkable Mr Danny Harris. Danny is the founder of Peoples District, the blog where he collects the fascinating stories of strangers from around the District of Columbia. People’s District was my way of meeting the people I saw every day, but never stopped to introduce myself to: Carolyn, the crossing guard on my street; Cedric, who ran by my office most days, spinning in circles while yelling ‘HOOT, HOOT’; Dave, who rides his bike up and down my street in a finely tailored suit and fedora; and Josh, who checks my ID at the 9:30 Club. I saw these people more often than I saw my own family, yet I had never exchanged more than a ‘good morning’ or ‘thank you’ with them. During one of those proverbial wake-up moments in July 2009, I stopped my first person to ask, ‘So, what’s your story?’ Joe, my first interviewee, spoke passionately about growing up on U Street and his first experience of going downtown after the end of segregation. After Joe came Andrew, talking about overcoming homelessness, then Eric and Maddie, discussing the D.C. hardcore music scene. Each story shed light… read more →

We recently heard about a new project in Grand Rapids, MI called 5×5 night that sounds like the genius child between the Awesome Foundation and Ignite or Pecha Kucha: 5 ideas are presented for 5 minutes each with 5 slides, and 5 judges then decide which to give $5000 to. It sounds like a great time and we can’t wait to see what comes out of it. Another excellent project similar to us is the Sunday Soup network, which was actually founded in 2007 (2 years before the Awesome Foundation!) and has 25 groups throughout the United States and Europe. Sunday Soup’s model of microgrants is based around people coming together around an affordable communal meal, the proceeds of which go towards a creative project of the diners’ choosing. Basically, it’s like Awesome Foundation: the dinner party–and how could you possibly not love that? If you know of another micro-granting initiative out there (or want to start one!), please let us know so we can make a totally sweet webring. Awesomeness is a renewable resource, and as far as we’re concerned, the more the merrier!